Google has recently announced it’s killing the legacy (free) g-suite accounts in June. They’ve given people 6 months notice but it’s likely to be a huge pain for many people. There are two ways out; cough up or leave.
I’ve got one domain I’ve set up and given accounts to about 10 family members. I have absolutely no interest in paying the $720/year to maintain that under the new plan. I understand there’s a cost to providing an email service, but I don’t think most normal people are understand or will accept it.
Does anyone else provide emails for their extended family? What solution do you use?
It seems the Microsoft 365 Personal is a good option, but it’s limited to 6. I suspect I’ll end up with that and have to sever ties with a few family members.
I bought a domain with a local provider, here in Germany, Strato, and have my emails set up there. I am planning on setting up a NextCloud on it, but haven’t gotten around to that yet. That costs me around 20€ - I also bought a separate domain for my granddaughter, when she was born.
We used her domain to register her new Toniebox, so at 13 months, it is actually registered in her name!
I’m finding odd that I haven’t gotten this email yet. I’m cancelling one because I don’t use that email service, but I’ll keep the other for now until I figure what I want to do with those accounts.
The Toniebox is essentially a robust MP3 player, with no buttons. You buy little plastic figures that stick on top with a magnet and have an NFC chip inside.
It tells the box which story to download/play. The “Tonies” (the figures) are registered to the owner’s account.
The box has 2 “ears” to change the volume, squeezing them makes it louder or quieter. Hitting the box on one side skips to the next track (chapter/story/song) on the other side, the previous track. Tipping it one side or the other fast forwards/rewinds the current track.
It is very intuitive for small children. Our granddaughter is 13 months old and can use it on her own. Tonies range from baby to teenager content.
I never got the email either. The theory I read on Reddit was that it’s being emailed to the US first, then the rest get it later. Google’s article on it doesn’t say it’s regional, so who knows.
I’ve got a few of my secondary domains set up on mxroute.com. It’s stupidly cheap, but I don’t know if I’d trust it for my primary domain yet. Although maybe I’m over thinking it, assuming you’ve got a backup, mail is just a dns change away from moving to a new host.
I’ve honestly considered just moving to a new provider off of Gsuite anyways. I want to set up my wife an e-mail on my domain but I can’t really justify another $6/month for and to quote her “So another Gmail account” currently her e-mail is Gmail but it was set up by her ex-husband and also includes her prior married name.
I still have a couple of domains I control on free Gsuite. Maybe 2 mailboxes each. Never got the email.
Since they are “secondary” domains that I don’t really receive email on, I’ll probably just let them go.
Doesn’t explain why I haven’t gotten the email yet, unless I somehow set the account up in a why that it doesn’t have a country >.>
I actually had two domains using it, and I canceled one of them because I wasn’t actively using it. Actually, I might just let the domain itself go because it was a project I never got around to developing, and it could be a source of secondary income if I did something with it when I registered the domain.
Still not sure what I’m going to do with my other domain yet.
I used to be on the legacy plan, but jumped to Fastmail (refer a friend link) last year and am very happy with the service. It’s no cheaper than GSuite if you’re using your own domain, but has great filtering and rules—as well as the catchall feature which is definitely missing from iCloud Domain email.
For other accounts I’m using a mixture of NameCheap and Zoho, both services work fairly well and are very cheap—which if you’re providing email to a larger number of family members is definitely a win.
My domain registrar appears to be the best option somehow. I just need to decided if I want forwarding or actual mailboxes.
Edit: From a cost POV BTW. Though Zoho might be good option… I think I’ll try Zoho first, and if I don’t like it for some reason, I’ll switch to my registrar.
